A joint research project of SCQM,
Swiss rheumatologists and AbbVie

Short introduction of the project

Enthesitis is an early and important feature in Spondyloarthritis. In this project, Prof. Hügle and colleagues aimed to analyze the effectiveness of TNF-inhibitor treatment on the resolution of enthesitis in a DMARD-naïve population of patients. The data set used was the Swiss cohort of axial spondyloarthritis patients, which is one of the cohorts of the Swiss Clinical Quality Management (SCQM) Foundation.

Of the 248 DMARD naïve patients included in the analysis, 160 had active enthesitis at initiation of their first TNF- inhibitor. Our analysis suggests that with TNF-inhibitor treatment, 45% of patients experienced complete enthesitis resolution and approximately 50% of patients experience resolution of enthesitis in the majority of the evaluated axial sites at six months. In the Achilles tendon and plantar fascia sites, however, little resolution of enthesitis was observed with treatment at six months.

We now plan to extend the analysis by evaluating the impact of TNF-inhibitor treatment on the evolution of enthesitis over longer time periods and in a broader set of patients, including those with psoriatic arthritis and TNF-inhibitor experienced patients suffering from enthesitis.

Benefits from this collaboration encompassing the investigator, company and registry

The major strength of this collaboration in my view lies in the way the different players brought along mutually complementing skills and strengths. All collaborators drove the conceptual and study design parts of the project. However, for certain areas of expertise we were able to specifically rely on individual players. For example, we were able to rely on the SCQM investigators for questions regarding clinical relevance, whilst the company strongly supported the project in terms of literature search and scientific writing. The SCQM statistics team was able to contribute by using its in-depth knowledge of the SCQM data. All in all a very positive experience!